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Painful rebirth of Iraq in cauldron of defeat

After dictatorship and near anarchy, now comes the task of rebuilding. Richard Woods, Tony Allen-Mills and Nicholas Rufford report on Americas plans  and the implications for how long its forces will remain in Iraq

For a man being compared with a viceroy, Brigadier-General Buck Walters doesn’t have much of a throne. Arriving in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr last week, Walters found furniture in short supply as he set about transforming an abandoned building into the first US civilian authority in post-Saddam Iraq.

Perching awkwardly on a plastic folding chair, Walters proudly declared that Umm Qasr, the scene of fierce fighting between British and Iraqi troops in the opening days of the war, had become “the first corner of Iraq that’s totally free”.

Brought back from military retirement, Walters has exchanged a millionaire lifestyle as an insurance executive in San Antonio, Texas, for the controversial task of imposing order on a nation of Iraqis who last week celebrated liberation with a nose-dive into anarchy. He is one of three regional administrators appointed by the Pentagon’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), headed